Team BKool CycleChat

[bobinski]

At 400 watts I'd be wiped out in about 3 minutes. Best to average out the watts over the ride to get your quickest time, depending of course on what drafting opportunities are available.

Absolutely Bill, I think my ride Thursday was more akin to interval training, accelerate, catch up, rest, accelerate, overtake, recover, try and pull ahead, collapse, try all over again! Hence the spikes of 400 plus. Steady sustained power is a weakness to be overcome.

 

[Soarerv8]

Well tomorrow morning I head off on my annual "pedaling around a bit" tour. This year I am going up to Carlisle and then slowly ambling my way over to Scarborough taking in lots of lumpy bits in the middle of the country. I am hoping that the bkool hours in the garage will have prepared my legs.

Lately I have been concentrating largely on tapering and carb loading for the journey and even if I say so myself I have done an excellent job of it.

 

[CXRAndy]

Absolutely Bill, I think my ride Thursday was more akin to interval training, accelerate, catch up, rest, accelerate, overtake, recover, try and pull ahead, collapse, try all over again! Hence the spikes of 400 plus. Steady sustained power is a weakness to be overcome.

Its amazing how much speed by saw-toothing gives you for a very low average power output. I have a plan tonight, if I dont fluff the start. Best laid plans of mice and?

 

[Soarerv8]

Its amazing how much speed by saw-toothing gives you for a very low average power output. I have a plan tonight, if I dont fluff the start. Best laid plans of mice and?

Have tried this and trouble is when I back off a bit to try to follow it with a burst of power I find I quite like the backing off bit so just stay there and forget to do the power on part.

 

[bobinski]

Its amazing how much speed by saw-toothing gives you for a very low average power output. I have a plan tonight, if I dont fluff the start. Best laid plans of mice and?

Absolutely. Give it a go but be aware you have to try and hold something in reserve and still be able to apply enough power on long flat sections.

 

[Soarerv8]

Anyone up for a re run this evening at 5? Better see if I can still pedal

 

[gbrown]

Its amazing how much speed by saw-toothing gives you for a very low average power output. I have a plan tonight, if I dont fluff the start. Best laid plans of mice and?

I thought saw-toothing was frowned upon, as it exploits a weakness in the simulation and doesn't reflect real life performance? It seems an artificial way to ride.

Edit: I couldn't find an emoji with a cat and pigeons...

 

[bobinski]

I thought saw-toothing was frowned upon, as it exploits a weakness in the simulation and doesn't reflect real life performance? It seems an artificial way to ride.

Edit: I couldn't find an emoji with a cat and pigeons...

Hi Geoff, I honestly have no idea if I am saw-toothing. Most of the time I am just trying to hang on to the faster riders and then also trying to pull away. If I am on the limit then I will ease off/collapse to recover and then try again.

 

[theboxers]

I thought saw-toothing was frowned upon, as it exploits a weakness in the simulation and doesn't reflect real life performance? It seems an artificial way to ride.

Edit: I couldn't find an emoji with a cat and pigeons...

The only person you hurt, when doing this, is yourself. It deceives you into thinking you are better than you are, DAMHIKT. Yes you may get better results in league and other sessions. But ultimately you can not transfer the skill(?) into real world riding.

Been there tried that

 

[CXRAndy]

Hi Bob, look at your graph from Thursday and compare to AAAC, mine and Bridgy.

5 pm warm up 5.10pm start?

 

[theboxers]

Anyone up for a re run this evening at 5? Better see if I can still pedal

After thursday I don't want to tempt fate again . I am off of call Monday so will attempt the missing sessions then, I hope .

 

[BILL S]

Hi Bob, look at your graph from Thursday and compare to AAAC, mine and Bridgy.

5 pm warm up 5.10pm start?

But when you look at my graph it's also quite peaky and troughy, but these do line up with the hills. I take it easy down the hills then power up for sling shotting up the next one. That's because it's quite an up down ride. I think the real on/offing can be seen better when it's a flat ride where there's no need to be powering up and down all the time.
BTW slingshotting does work a bit in the real world because Bridgy and Adam did it near the bottom of a steep hill we were all going down last weekend and they ended up quite far ahead of me half way up the hill on the other side. I find myself far more cautious out there in the real world where it can get quite scary up at speed IMO.

 

[BILL S]

Yes, 5pm warmup 5:10 start. I better go and switch on the aircon.

 

[BILL S]

And:
Out in the real world I definitely found myself freewheeling down the hills and leaving the power for the flats and uphill. Also the considerable amount of drafting we did last weekend showed us it worked a lot better than on bkool, and it involved short periods of freewheeling even on the flat.
I think you'd be surprised just how much the power graph of real world riding would fluctuate. And, if your graph on bkool is too steady it could be down to inefficient riding .

There is a happy medium somewhere I think

 

[BILL S]

I thought saw-toothing was frowned upon, as it exploits a weakness in the simulation and doesn't reflect real life performance? It seems an artificial way to ride.

Edit: I couldn't find an emoji with a cat and pigeons...

It possibly is a little frowned upon but I think there is a little leeway to encompass most riding styles. But I like to think that if we were all riding on a long flat course then the main power fluctuations would be caused by the drafting, or occasional exuberant sprints like Lars and his snake bites trying to un-nerve the competition.